


Just *Go* Already!

by orphan_account



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon GO
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Augmented Reality, Pokemon GO - Freeform, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 14:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7442464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I got the call late on one hot summer day. It was maybe 100 degrees in our small second floor apartment, so my husband, our meowth, and I were holed up into the air conditioned room, just waiting for the sun and the thermostat to go down.</p><p>“Hello?” I asked my phone, wondering who was calling me. </p><p>“Good evening! Is this Zia?” A warm man's voice asked. He sounded British, and that is literally the only reason I did not hang up that moment.</p><p>“Yes...?” I said warily, but, again, British man.</p><p>“Oh, good! This is Professor Willow. You had signed onto the waiting list to be part of our opensource pokémon data collecting program. I just wanted to let you know that the pokédex app is available for download now.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just *Go* Already!

I got the call late on one hot summer day. It was maybe 100 degrees in our small second floor apartment, so my husband, our meowth, and I were holed up into the air conditioned room, just waiting for the sun and the thermostat to go down.

“Hello?” I asked my phone, wondering who was calling me. 

“Good evening! Is this Zia?” A warm man's voice asked. He sounded British, and that is literally the only reason I did not hang up that moment.

“Yes...?” I said warily, but, again, British man.

“Oh, good! This is Professor Willow. You had signed onto the waiting list to be part of our opensource pokémon data collecting program. I just wanted to let you know that the pokédex app is available for download now.”

Oh shit, oh shit, no way. I might have teared up a little in shock. No freaking way! Was it finally happening? How many years ago did I sign up for this, completely believing this day would never come?

“Does that mean we get to-” My voice broke.

“Catch wild pokémon, yes.”

I moved the phone away from my face and covered it to let out the emotions.

My husband walked out into the kitchen in his underwear to get a glass of water.

“It's not that hot in here.” He said to me before making his way back into the bedroom. 

“All done now?” I heard his tiny voice from my outstretched phone. 

“Yeah. I'm okay.” I sighed. “Does this happen often to you?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, every damned kid, same reaction.” I snorted. Good, a professor that swears. This gets better and better. 

“All right. So, let me explain how this works.” He said, getting a lecturing tone. As he started talking, I quickly ran to my desk and started taking notes, although I knew I would etch every one of his words into my brain, no matter how long and complicated the process was. “We're slowly going through the database of pokémon, and we're slowly getting them approved for study, one at a time. So there will be pokémon you see that won't register in the pokédex, and you are not allowed to capture these. When you are near a pokémon that you are able to catch, the pokédex app will vibrate your phone, so you don't have to be staring at a screen as you walk. And for the love of Arceus, watch where you're going when you're looking for pokémon.” He sounded like people were walking off cliffs or something. 

“Okay, no running into traffic, got it.”

“Not only that, don't go onto other people's lands, don't go into construction sites, abandoned buildings, don't go looking for Pokémon during a hurricane, don't try swimming after them, you'll drown, or get eaten by a Gyarados-”

“Alright! I got it! No endangering myself, others, or the Pokémon trying to catch one.”

“Good.”

“But how will I see a Zapdos if I don't go out during a thunderst-”

“Don't go out during a thunderstorm! No! You don't do that, and if you see any of your peers doing anything dumb like that, you intervene, got it?”

“Yea- wait, peers?” My meowth, Bud, jumped into my lap and curled himself in my crossed legs, purring loudly. 

“Yes, this is a crowd-based data collecting. There are a number of others in your area doing the same work.”

“Oh, okay.” It was a bummer, there were others catching Pokemon around me as well. Would we have to battle?

“Now, then. The local library is a Pokéstop. You will have to go there to collect your first batch of Pokéballs. They have a 3D printer there, but understand that they can only print so many in a given time, and you aren't the only one collecting from them, so you'll have to go to other Pokéstops if the daily allowance isn't enough. Don't be surprised if they're short on stock as well, though.”

“Okay.” I scratched Bud's ears and his purring grew in intensity. “So, catching pokémon...”

“For the most part, the pokémon you encounter should be weak enough to take by pokéball alone. No fighting necessary.”

“And the stronger ones?”

“You'll have to use your own judgment to decide if your pokémon can handle the fight. Speaking of which, you'll need a starter pokémon. Bulbasaur, charmander, or squirtle?”

“Oh man, I definitely want a s- buah!” I yelled as Bud suddenly decided he hated being scratched on his ears and scratched my hand, flailing wildly in my lap. I tossed him off my lap, and he dashed away, knocking a sheaf of papers off my desk in the process. 

“Okay, a bulbasaur it is! That pokémon will be given to you at the library when you pick up your balls.” He seemed excited about my choice. 

“No, no, no! I want a squirtle!” I said. 

“Ah, sorry, but bulbasaur is already registered under your name.” He seemed... too happy.

“Can't you change it!? No one wants bulbasaur!”

Silence. Then, “You're right. No one wants bulbasaur. And yet, we started with equal amounts of the three starters to be divided evenly between all of you ungrat- volunteers. So, you get a bulbasaur.”

My eyes narrowed as a realization came upon me. “You don't have any squirtle or charmander left, do you?”

“... So! Catching pokémon is quite straightforward! We hope you catch lots! But please remember to be conscientious of the amount of pokémon you keep. Most will need to be released back into the wilds so the numbers don't decrease too dramatically. Whichever pokémon you want to release, please transfer them at any pokéstop.”

“Wait, so I can't even keep all of the pokémon I catch? Why would I bother catching any of the same species after the first one, then?”

“We'll give you candy in exchange.”

I had to think about it. “What kind of candy?”

“...Jolly Ranchers?” He sounded like he was guessing the right answer.

“...Okay, I'll do it.” Sue me, I'm a ten-year-old on the inside.

“Good! Once the pokémon are transferred to us, we will collect some samples, measure it's size, and tag it so it won't set off the pokédex again within a year. There's really no point in capturing it again so soon. Although we may like to follow how pokémon grow in the wild, monitor their migration patterns, et cetera, so we will need to capture them again in time.”

“Okay.” I ran through the list. Covered pokéballs, capturing pokémon, what to do with them, other trainers... “Other trainers... will we have to fight when we run into another?”

“What? No! Who told you that!?” Angry British accent, drool. 

“I just thought, well, the games-”

“Games are games! No one's going to force you into fighting with pokémon against your will, unless they're a fucking lunatic. However, you do have the option of battling at a gym, but that is entirely your own decision. Most gym leaders actually prefer you not fight, because holding the title of the gym gives you candy passively.”

“Huh...” I was going to be a gym leader then, no excuses. 

“That's about it! Just go gather data and observe pokémon in the wild! We are accepting any extra field notes about your experiences with this study as well, so if you want to, you can do that.”

“Do I get candy for it?” I asked maybe too eagerly.

“No.” My heart fell. “That's just a nice additional thing you could do to help fill out this study.”

“Alright.” Never. “Is that all, then?”

“Yes, I believe so. If there are any updates, I'll have one of my grad students contact you.”

“Okay. And thank you, so much for this opportunity.” I'm not usually one for shows of affection, but a childhood dream coming true is an acceptable reason to be a little emotional.

“Ah, not at all, thank you for doing this for us. Have fun!”

“Bye.” I hung up. I stood up from the desk, and flopped onto the couch. 

I felt like I had just gone through an emotional wringer. I suppose I had. 

Realizing I still had time to get my pokéballs before the library closed, I got up and went into the bedroom on a quest for pants. The air conditioning hit me in a refreshing wall after the sticky humidity just outside. 

“What was that about?” My husband asked. 

“Pokémon.” I said. He didn't go into it. He knew better, if he didn't want to listen to me going on nonstop about local pokémon, their anatomy, flight patterns, calls, color variations, behaviors, etc. He had bought me a pair of decent binoculars for my birthday last year, to better watch the bird pokémon, but he, himself, was uninterested with boring animals. He might have been interested if I had brought home a Charizard, but until then...

Pidgeys were everywhere, they flew in front of the car all the time, they hung out on our porch when I threw down sunflower seeds, they drove Bud crazy, normal bird stuff. I hadn't been this excited about local wildlife for a long time. This time, I got to keep them. Like pets. But, eh, maybe only outside. Wild pokémon would be different from the domestic meowths and growlithes people kept as pets. Probably tear up the couch, too. Although my stupid domestic meowth did that, too. 

I watched him, sleeping soundly and happily now in his cardboard box, the anger of five minutes ago dissipated completely. I decided I would keep him unless a wild pokémon showed a little bit of restraint. Then is when I would weigh my options. 

As soon as the pokédex app had downloaded, and I was decently clothed, I left. It was cooler outside than inside, some sort of air circulation going on. I watched the new app work as I walked. The thing worked off of Google's map system, and had a small sprite of myself on it. There were small indicators on the bottom of the screen, noting that there were pokémon that were capturable nearby. It couldn't say exactly which pokémon was there, but the indicators gave off slightly different sizes and colors for most of the small dots. I guessed that with practice, you'd be able to tell which pokémon the small blue icon meant contrasted to the small blue-green and the small green icons. 

I watched a small group of taillow fly overhead, disappointed that they didn't seem to be available for capture yet. I hoped avinch were registered. I had only just started noticing the gold finches around, and they were so adorable! I had even seen an avinch with orange plumage once out the window while at work. That was a year ago. I hadn't seen it since. But that didn't mean it wasn't around.

There was a large, bright blue icon on the map, near the library. The pokéstops were blue, as well, but this was much more electric than the others. And it had some other nonsense floating around it as well. I'd check it out when I got in view of it. 

The library was across the street from the large creek that ran through my village, dissecting it in half. A lot of my fondest childhood memories was chasing the corphish in the shallow water with my brothers, running away in terror when we stumbled on an evans in the big rocks, confused when I found a shellder that one time, because we were all very certain shellder didn't live in freshwater. 

“Nostalgia.” I murmured, meditating on the view of the sun setting on the calm creek. Shaking myself from my reverie, I eyed up and down the street. The only thing that the strange icon could be pointing to was the public gazebo on the bank. There was a man sitting in it, his phone out, a giant venonat batting around an orange ball. 

Oh shit, it's another trainer. I froze. What if he forces me to battle? 

Calm down. I reminded myself of Professor Willow saying all battles were done with total consent. I quickly walked on past, also remembering I didn't even have my first pokémon. My phone didn't show any other icons like his on my map when I glanced down at it discreetly. Maybe he was the only other trainer in town? Maybe I would have to say hello. We might get some use out of having a community effort, no matter how small the community. Maybe I could bum pokéballs off him if I ever ran out. 

He didn't look my way, just kept thumbing his phone, his venonat making happy clicking noises. Eh, bug pokémon... They weren't as cute as birds, even, but they did have an alien charm to them. 

The library in my village was large and imposing, made of white stone with four huge columns decorating the front, stairs lined with wrought-iron handrails. It used to be a college back in the old days, and though the fee for learning has changed, the chance for learning stayed the same. 

The air conditioning was on in the building, I felt it as soon as I pushed open the door, more relief at being away from the heat for one glorious minute. 

“Hello!” The small librarian squeaked from behind the counter as I walked in. She had read to my elementary school class when I had attended, and I supposed she still did to the newer generations. 

“Hi.” I said, maybe a bit uncomfortable being here not for books. I had been a voracious reader back in school, had visited the library almost everyday, but now with a full time job and housework and chores, I had fallen from my roots. Reading on the internet, although still technically reading, felt like a betrayal of my old friendly physical books. Walking in here, I felt like I was in an ex-friend's house, one who I had scorned badly, but still needed favors from.

“Can I help you find something?” She asked. 

“Uh, yeah. Um. Professor Willow said I could get, um, pokéballs?” I wasn't good at talking. Knowing I wasn't good at talking made me more aware of how bad at talking I was, and made me talk worse. So I tried not to talk to people, if I could help it.

“Oh! Right, we do have those here, come with me.” She led me past the shelves and up a staircase out back, flanked by wooden columns. I knew this room, it was the old book room. I didn't know exactly the name, but it was for books that were too old or expensive to be taken out by anyone. You could read one, with permission, in this room, no flash photography. They had parked their 3D printer on the table in the middle of the small room, the machine whirring madly, a small number of honest to god pokéballs in a collection container on the end. 

It started feeling real, now. Seeing those things. Who didn't want to be a master pokémon trainer when they were little? At least around our area, it was a realistic sort of dream, as long as you were comfortable calling a farmer a “master pokémon trainer.” Catching wild pokémon was illegal for almost everyone, everywhere, but domestic pokémon alone seemed... I don't know. Dull? Mundane? There was no thrill in domestic species, or hardly any thrill. Like, Oh, yay, another litter of meowths looking for a home. 

“Here's the bunch set aside for you.” She said, digging underneath the table at a small crate, holding maybe one hundred of the balls, and a small unexplained baggie. She pushed the small box into my arms, as I wondered. They seemed-

“Kind of smaller than the other ones, dontcha think?” I asked confused, picking up a tiny pokéball between my thumb and forefinger. Struck with a distant memory, I poked the white button on the front, and it expanded instantly to the size of a baseball. 

“Haha! That answers that, then!” She twittered. She picked up three of the balls that had been freshly made by the printer, and placed them in my box. The size difference weighed one side of the box unevenly, so I clicked them tiny. “You can have a few more.”

“Thank you.” I didn't stutter, didn't fill the silence with um's and uh's. I was so grateful for all of this that I didn't occur to me to be self-conscious. 

“Not a problem! You're helping out with the study, right? It's good for you kids to get outside and learn a thing or two!” She said as we walked back down the stairs. 

“Goodbye!” I said, eager to start, even though night was fast approaching. 

“Take care!” She waved. 

I don't think I'd ever been so excited to go outside in sweltering heat as I did now. Exploration. Adventure opened up before me, in my very own backyard, like it had never been before. 

I remembered I was supposed to get a bulbasaur with this, and turned to go back inside, but glanced through the balls first. One had been marked with a green circle sticker on the front. I threw the rest of the balls in my leather messenger bag, and clicked this one large. I wasn't sure about this, but I had to try. 

I threw it in an arc on the lawn. It hit the grass, nothing happened. Maybe the professor waas just fucking with me, and didn't give me a pokémon at all.

I walked over and picked it up, wondering if there was any other option. 

“No...”

I had to at least try, right? How many people driving by could see how weird I looked, a grown-ass woman throwing a ball to an imaginary friend? It didn't matter that I didn't see anyone watching, my embarrassment grew. 

“Bulbasaur!” I shouted, throwing the ball again.

With it's summoning, the pokéball froze in midair, a foot above the ground, emitting a loud “poowowa” sound, a blue miasma of light screaming out and morphing into a small green plant monster. 

“Bulbasaur...” I sighed with relief, catching the pokéball as it flew back at me, almost smacking me in the face. 

The professor wasn't pulling my leg. This was real. My life would never be the same again. I slowly approached the green monster. 

It's skin was blue and scaled, like a tortoise, the bulb on it's back that youthful green, like a cicada newly shed from it's brown shell. I had the feeling if I lifted a thin leaf off the mass gently, it would have shimmered iridescent in the sun. 

It didn't have to be a squirtle or a charmander. Any pokémon would have been this beautiful. 

In awe, but not knowing why, I knelt down cautiously when it's vines began vibrating, a show of fear or aggression, about four feet from it. This one was small, from what I had read. Bulbasaur, charmander, and squirtle were all rare in the wild, being breed for their temperament and battle-readiness for new trainers. The average size was two feet tall, but this one was maybe three-quarters that. Nearing a foot, but definitely larger than a foot. Maybe an adolescent, maybe a runt or maybe a female. Would they give a young pokémon to a new trainer? Probably not, but I'd have to Google it later. 

“Hi there.” I said softly, pitching my voice up. I proffered my hand out for it to examine. It withdrew, moving a foot backwards, as if it were getting ready to flee. My mind panicked, worried that I was going to lose my first real pokémon. (The cat did not count.) Should I throw the pokéball back at it, try this again in a more confined area, so it couldn't run? What kind of trainer would I be if I forced it into this? I guess it had already been forced into enough already. 

I settled myself down, trying to look less like I was about to pounce on it, and more like I was relaxing. 

“I wonder if you understand human speech.” I said evenly, meeting it's crimson eyes. Did that make it deaf? “Would you be a white monster if you didn't have the chlorophyll turning you green? Red and pink eyes in other pokémon mean they're albino, and albino animals typically have problems hearing.” Why was I lecturing a bulbasaur on physiology? It seemed like it had become less tense, at least, the vines curling back up into it's sides. Even if it was deaf, it could see I didn't mean it any imminent harm. 

I suddenly remembered the unexplained baggie that came with my balls. I moved slowly, opening the bag and digging around until I brought the thing out. I hoped it was what I thought it should be. 

Opened, the smell of pokémon snacks hit me. They were the small brown nuggets, not sure what they were made out of really, but they had the same distinctive smell as my meowth's treats. 

The bulbasaur immediately waddled forward a little before realizing I was still scary and stopped, one tiny paw still outstretched, wanting the food, but not wanting to be food. I took a few treats in hand and offered them to it. A moment passed, before the smell won it over and it closed the distance between us, tonguing up the treats in a heartbeat and licking the crumbs from my palm. I offered it more treats, a half-step closer to me, and it followed it's gut without hesitation this time. 

When it had cleared the area of food again, I nudged its cheek with the back of my hand. It snorted, content. 

And that was how my first battle had been won.


End file.
